Tha'aron
Tha'aron Mendonshire was a wizard living in White Mesa during the New Age. His given name was Thaeroniscus Mendonshire, but it was an obscure name that was difficult to pronounce so he tended to use it only when signing legal documents and when stalling for time. For a time, Tha'aron traveled with Brian Devonhyre and a group of other adventurers who called themselves the Light Bringers. It was during this time that the wizard first encountered Hissy-Fitt, an enchanted, perpetually youthful kitten who was capable of metamorphosing into a giant panther. Hissy-Fitt would accompany Tha'aron for the rest of his adventuring days and beyond. Eventually, the party went their separate ways, and Tha'aron retreated to the mountains with his cat, ostensibly to retire. He asked that his former traveling companions not disturb him. At some point prior to his retirement proper, Tha'aron fell in with a circle of wizards living in White Mesa. He was anointed as part of their esteemed order, living in seclusion in the Ivory Palisades. When the decision was made to dismantle the keystone scepter and its focusing crystals, Tha'aron was charged with guardianship over the moonstone. The order of wizards was disbanded, and Tha'aron retreated to an enchanted log cabin in the frozen tundra, living in seclusion and shielded from outside visitors. The location of the cabin was chosen due to being a focal point for magical communication. Tha'aron collected artifacts from the Old Age, and possessed arguably the world's largest assembly of surviving Old Age antiques. During his long years in solitude, Tha'aron constructed an apparatoid to assist him in simple household tasks. He named the creation Syzygy, though Tha'aron regarded it as little more than a particularly useful tool, and rarely showed it any sort of respect. He usually only spoke to it when he required it to perform a task, and frequently referred to it only as "nitwit." Tha'aron was capable of casting numerous powerful incantations with the use of his spellbook, but he had very few spells memorized. The Quest for the World-Breaker Brian Devonhyre eventually elected to seek out Tha'aron in unctual year 3889, in the hopes that he would know something about the location of the scattered parts of the World-Breaker and how to destroy the weapon. Traveling with the butterfly princess Mariposa, the moth warrior Syxx, and young Talla Unica, the group was found first by Hissy-Fitt and then by Tha'aron, who was inconvenienced by the unannounced arrival, but agreed to shelter the group and hear their pleas. Tha'aron would not admit Mariposa while wearing her bloodrock amulet and other equipment, however, knowing full well of its inherent danger to living things. Tha'aron recognized the weapon they described as the Terra Mortis, or Earth Killer. He used a seeing stone and attempted to communicate with the wizard of his former order, but for some unknown reason, he was unable to contact any of them. Barring that, Tha'aron's best suggestion was to allow the moths to continue searching for the pieces, since they were employing dragon beetles that could sense the dark energy that radiated from magical relics and were capable of excavating for them. Suffice to say, the party disliked this suggestion. Regretting that the group had traveled such a long way for naught, Tha'aron offered them the use of his wagon. While enlisting Syzygy to help prepare it, however, both of them, and the rest of the party, were buried in a snow avalanche. When young Talla Unica went into hypothermic shock as a result, Tha'aron was able to successfully revive her by summoning a magical lightning bolt, shocking her system into resuscitation. Tha'aron slept while the group returned to Torlynn Castle, awakening only when the castle was under attack by goblin forces and Talla Unica shook him into wakefulness. Recognizing the importance of stopping the goblins aboard the airship Xanthippe from using the World-Breaker, Tha'aron prepared to use another lightning bolt against them that was sufficiently powerful to cost him his own life. Recognizing this at the last second, Talla Unica grabbed the wizard, inadvertantly contributing some of her own life force to the magic spell. What Tha'aron failed to realize was that a jolt of electrical energy was precisely what the World-Breaker required to activate its dark magic, and the weapon was brought to life. After Syxx and Mariposa successfully disposed of the missile, in the aftermath of the castle siege, Tha'aron discovered that pirate captain Mirabel Miller had absconded with the remains of Syzygy. Disgusted, Tha'aron retreated back to his cabin along with Hissy-Fitt. The Veil of Souls Brian visited Tha'aron again in 3894, seeking someone who might know of a magical means by which Mariposa, who had been sent to the Old Age, might have endured the Cataclysm and survived to the New Age. By this point, Tha'aron was suffering from the early stages of dementia—repeating himself, cursing at random, inventing words, and forgetting that Syzygy was no longer living with him. Brian had been given information that Mariposa and Four, who had been transported to the Old Age, might have somehow survived the Cataclysm and still existed in the New Age. When Brian asked if there might have been some magical means by which this could be accomplished, Tha'aron knew of no such manner. However, he was aware that the keystone scepter, if it could be reassembled, might grant its user the ability to increase their magic sufficiently to locate Four and Mariposa. Tha'aron had sworn an oath never to reveal the location of the scepter or its stones, but he did "accidentally" let their existence slip. Also, professing to have forgotten its significance due to his advanced age, he gave Mirabel Miller the moonstone as a peace offering after accidentally insulting her. Providing the group with the first focusing crystal served as the impetus for the group to search for the other stones and, eventually, rebuild the scepter. Brian later realized that Tha'aron had not been quite so senile as he had seemed to be, and that he'd deliberately set the group on the right path. Trivia The Veil of Souls establishes that Tha'aron was 80 years old in unctual year 3894. Behind the Scenes Much like Brian Devonhyre, the character of Tha'aron was originally created for a tabletop role-playing campaign. Accompanying him originally were Hissy-Fitt and a magical dagger named Ysbadden; the role of the enchanted tool was given to a new character, Syzygy, for the e-book. Category:Persons Category:Humans Category:Wizards Category:Light Bringers Category:Magic-Users Category:Main Characters